


Dogs of the Father: The Post-Apocalyptic Wanderings of the Fallen Archangel Gabriel, Episode 1 - Little Prophet

by Anna_Erishkigal



Category: Legion (2010)
Genre: Angels, Angels vs. Demons, Blasphemy, Demons, F/M, Fallen Angels, Hurt Gabriel, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-23 04:42:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6105248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anna_Erishkigal/pseuds/Anna_Erishkigal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Gabriel is cast down from heaven and stripped of all his power, Michael recruits Audrey Anderson, who has been given the gift of 'holy blasphemy,' to teach Gabriel what it means to be human. </p>
<p>Post-Legion: set immediately after the events of the Paradise Diner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Foreword to Dogs of the Father

Greetings!

Have you ever watched a movie and gone, 'ooh! That could have been so much better!' It was like that when I watched the original 2010 movie Legion, black-winged, leather-bound angels and a blend of questioning faith vs. the horror of the Rapture. When Gabriel killed his brother, forever obedient, he shed a single, perfect tear which became the basis of this epic fanfiction. 

I originally wrote this in 2010-2011, after I had written reams of other fanfiction and the rough-draft of what later became my Sword of the Gods series, but before I began publishing professionally as an author. I will upload this story over the next few weeks and break it apart into novella-length 'episodes.' This was written LONG before they came out with the series Dominion. While I watched a few episodes of that series, I could never reconcile their interpretation of Gabriel as a moustache-twirling villain, so I stopped watching it. The Gabriel as depicted in Dominion is not -my- Gabriel, the obedient archangel who cried when he killed his brother, and while I liked the premise, after writing a 550,000 epic fanfiction rehabilitating the character, I just couldn't bear to see my beloved Gabriel turned into a bad guy.

This is an epic-length fanfiction, written over the coarse of almost a year. As I upload it I'll do some light editing as I'm a much better writer now than I was back in 2011, but I'm not going to do a full-blown 'professional' edit as it's fanfiction and I derive no money from this exercise in self-gratification.

If you enjoy this story, please leave a comment if you want to say 'hi' or have any questions! I know a lot of people are sad SciFy just pulled the plug on Dominion, but remember, stories only die if people stop writing fanfiction about them! Star Trek lives because people refused to let it go.

Happy reading!  
Anna Erishkigal

P.S. - This story is NOT religious fiction! Rated R.

***

Legal Disclaimers: I write fanfiction for my own gratification and amusement. I receive no financial compensation for writing this story. Audrey Anderson, Gabriel and Michael as depicted in the movie Legion, and other Legion characters all belong to the original creators. Everything else which is not already copyright to the Legion creators is copyrighted to me.

Dogs of the Father: The Post-Apocalyptic Wanderings of the Fallen Archangel Gabriel. Copyright (c) 2011 by Anna Erishkigal. All rights reserved.


	2. Prologue

The Archangel Gabriel stood over the pathetic human, ready to deal a death-blow to this man who dared defy the will of god. He fingers tightened on the leather handle of his mace.

"Why do you fight?" Gabriel tilted his head. "When there is no hope?"

More than seven and a half feet tall, with the razor-sharp black wings gifted to him by the Father, humanity had always baffled Gabriel. They were willful creatures, prone to self-destruction, forever teetering at the precipice with their two-step dance of one step forward and three steps back between grace and immorality, barbarity, and each of the other seven deadly sins. And yet, here the meekest and most fearful of the humans was fighting _him,_ the _Word of God,_ to protect a newborn child who had no hope of surviving the Father's death-sentence.

The human, Jeep, twisted his meek features with defiance.

"Fuck you!" Jeep spat out.

Holy fire surged through Gabriel's veins as he raised his mace and drew upon the Holy Fire of the Father to smash this last vestige of humanity back into the mud from whence it had crawled.

Blinding white light split the air, momentarily blinding him as another angel dropped down from the heavens, his black wings flared like a raptor dropping in for the kill. A brief sensation of joy leaped in his heart before the descending angel knocked him back from his prey. Gabriel rose to his knees, unable to grasp the reality of his own salty blood pouring forth from his own mouth.

Gabriel touched his lip and stared at the red stain which glistened on his fingers in the moonlight. He stared in disbelief at the vestige which stood before him.

"This can't be!" Gabriel sputtered. He'd just killed Michael an hour earlier and watched his mortal shell dissipate into stardust. "You disobeyed him."

Michael's face filled with a blend of compassion and sorrow.

"You gave him what he asked for." Michael gestured toward the human. "I gave him what he needed."

Jealousy surged through Gabriel's body. Throughout eternity, he'd always been the good son, the obedient one, the son who followed orders no matter how difficult or what the personal cost. When the Father had ordered the Rapture, Gabriel had been ecstatic the Father was _through_ wasting time upon humanity. He had blown his horn and sent the Heavenly Host down to destroy them, the human refuse who perpetually drove the Father to wits end. And then, when Michael had refused to carry out the slaughter, he'd followed the Father's fatwa to kill his own brother even though it had threatened to burst his heart with grief. But now the Father had resurrected Michael from the dead and given him a second chance, given the pathetic _humans_ a second chance. The Father had given Michael back his wings!

Confusion gave way to rage. Like a wounded bull charging at a matador, Gabriel launched himself at his brother, hatred surging through his body like the blood which spilled forth from the sword-wound Michael had just given him. A pyroclastic explosion of millennia of suppressed jealousy flooded through his veins at the exact same moment that Gabriel felt the strength of the heavenly Father abandon him.

Gabriel stumbled, his own anger not enough to sustain his enormous weight. Michael's sword rang as he easily deflected the blow, slicing through Gabriel's armor, into his soft belly, and knocking him to the ground.

Gabriel gripped his belly, fighting to keep his intestines inside his abdomen. Over millions of years he'd fought countless battles, countless enemies, but this was the first time he'd ever felt the pain of his own wounds. His arms trembling, he pushed himself up onto his knees and faced his brother, pressing his own neck into the point of Michael's blade.

"Do it," Gabriel's face twisted with anguish. He, who had killed Michael, was about to be killed in return.

' _Please, Father, make it quick,'_ he prayed silently, ' _and bring me back into the light of your arms.'_

"No."

Michael pulled back his sword and turned to watch the first rays of sunlight shoot over the horizon. Disobedience flashed in Michael's eyes as the light reflected off his blue eyes.

"I would not have shown you such mercy." Gabriel heaved his enormous frame back up onto his feet, ignoring the pain as his entrails threatened to spill out into the vile sand. He hid his emotion behind the mechanical wall he had used since his the birth of the universe to prevent himself from feeling any emotion.

"I know." Michael's voice sounded sad as he delivered the Father's judgment. "That is why you failed him."

Failed him? How had he failed the Father? He, Gabriel, was the most loyal of all the dogs of heaven. When the Father said kill, he killed. When the Father said protect, he protected. When the Father said jump, Gabriel asked 'how high?' Failed the Father? How? He'd been following the Father's orders.

Michael turned his back on him the same way he had turned his back on their brother, Lucifer, millennia before when Lucifer had rebelled. Only _that_ time, Michael had been following orders, the obedient son, while it had been Lucifer, the rebellious son, who had chosen love of a mortal woman over the glory of heaven. Horror trembled through his body as he realized he, Gabriel, the Left Hand of God, was being dismissed.

He glanced over at the human male he'd just attempted to kill. The human watched with confusion in his eyes. The Father had not only just changed his mind, but now he found fault with Gabriel's willingness to follow orders? Tears welled in his eyes as a million questions rose to his lips and were stifled. He, the most unquestionably loyal of all the Father's angels, was being dismissed. Cast out of heaven for his obedience, just as Lucifer had been cast out of heaven for _disobedience_.

It was not befitting for the Left Hand of God to allow a mortal creature see him weep.

"I accept my fate," Gabriel whispered to the Father. "Forever your most obedient son."

He flared his wings and cast himself off the cliff, expecting the gateway to open and plunge him into Gehenna. His wings did not catch the wind, nor did they carry his weight as the wind raced past his ears. The ground sped towards him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the police car he had ripped the roof off of earlier to complete his mission until the brave woman-child had climbed upon his back and given the order leading to her own death.

"Father," Gabriel whispered right before his body hit the rocks.

His wings crumbled beneath him. Pain wrenched through his body as his bones shattered. He cried out as the light of the heavenly Father abandoned his immortal form and a terrible, aching void opened up where his Father's love had once connected him to his consciousness. It was said that angels didn't have souls, but for the first time in his very long existence, Gabriel felt what it must be like to _have_ a soul, to be separated from the Father's love, cast out of Eden, and forced to exist all on his own.

The collar that had been clamped around his neck his entire existence suddenly let go and fell off.

"Father?"

The world went mercifully to darkness.

*****NOTE*****

The above scene is my internal narration of the final battle between Michael and Gabriel as depicted in the movie Legion. In the next scene I'll weave in a bit of backstory so people who haven't watched the movie Legion can understand this jumping-off point, but after that, I go w-a-y off the reservation into a brand new tale :-)


	3. Chapter 1

In the void, there was nothing but a quiet sense of floating. There was no thought here. No worries. No fear. No pain. There was nothing at all except darkness, and a voice which sang a song.

A name attached to her, grabbed her, tried to drag her back from the void.

"Audrey?"

She fought the command. She had her _own_ voice now. Never again would she do another's bidding. She reached back towards the song, but the song whispered _'please?'_ She had unfinished business. The song had something it wanted her to do.

She cried out as pain wrenched through her entire being. Warmth flooded through her body as the pain gradually dissipated.

"Awaken, child." A warm voice rumbled which sounded familiar. "Awaken and face the dawn."

Audrey opened her eyes, confused, as her body hummed with a sensation not unlike electricity. The sensation felt pleasant, like the way your hands feel after you come in from the cold and warm them before a fire. A handsome face floated inches from hers, his stern features composed into an emotionless, porcelain mask, but his unearthly blue eyes radiated compassion.

"Michael?" Her hand flew to her mouth, bitter with the taste of blood. She picked bits of sand from the corner of her lips, but there was no cut there, no pain. She struggled to sit up. Coarse asphalt dug into her hands. "Where are we?"

The sunrise shone into his pale features, giving him a golden hue. Audrey squinted, blinded by the light. It felt as though Michael was part of the rising sun.

"The Father saw your sacrifice and was moved by it." A slight crinkle around his eyes betrayed the smile millennia of habit prevented him from showing. "He has granted a reprieve while I prove to him your species has value he has overlooked."

Audrey's brow wrinkled, part of her still connected to the song. The events of the past twenty-four hours flooded back into her mind.

_The Paradise Diner. An old lady bit a chunk out of her father and then walked on the ceiling. Michael's arrival. Kyle teaching her to shoot. Her father, crucified. The way his skin boiled, and then exploded into acid. She'd tried to save a little girl who'd turned into a demon. The awful sound of a trumpet which heralded something even worse was coming._

Audrey clamped her hands over her mouth. Her cry of horror came out as a scream.

"It's okay." Michael gripped her shoulder. "You're safe now."

For the first time, she noticed he now had wings. Magnificent, black wings with razor edges, rustling like the sound of steel being drawn across a whetstone. Like a spider trying to scramble backwards away from a bird, Audrey scurried away from the black-winged visage kneeled before her. Behind Michael, the police car lay upside down on the highway.

_Jeep and Charlie driving. The baby crying. The monster tore the roof off the car and crawled over the back seat, over -her- as it came to as it came to kill the baby._

_Anger surged through her veins. How dare you kill a child! She climbed over its back and wrapped her arms around the monster's neck, but was impeded by the collar. The thick, leather collar which prevented her from piercing his jugular._

_Jeep pressed the gas pedal into the floor. The police car sped up. It accelerated past 90 mph. Jeep looked back at her, and then looked at the windshield._

_'Do it!' she shouted._

_The car stopped. The monster didn't. She smashed through the windshield, still trapped between his back and the soft underside of his wings._

Her body trembled as she _remembered_ all the places the road had smashed her into meat. Michael's touch had healed the places she'd been broken, but he could not heal the memory of her own death.

"Is this hell?" she asked.

"You live," Michael said. "I think you remember why." The last was whispered as a plea.

Audrey touched the coarse, black asphalt where her blood had spilled and already begun to dry. Just before she'd hit the pavement, the monster had turned and wrapped her in its arms and wings, rolling _with_ her, absorbing the impact of the crash, rather than simply flying away.

"Why? Why did he try to save me when all he wanted to do was kill us?"

"You were not his quarry," Michael said. "It's not his nature to kill without a direct order." Michael grimaced. "Gabriel is quite literal about carrying out of the Father's fatwah's."

Audrey wiped her hand upon her thigh and realized her skirt had ripped during the crash, exposing her lacy underwear and leaving little to the imagination. She'd taken to dressing provocatively to make her parents pay attention. Now, they were both dead and she recognized her immodesty as the pathetic, futile gesture it was.

Shame flooded her face with heat. She felt like Eve, in the garden after eating the forbidden apple as she tugged down her skirt and covered herself as best she could.

She stared at her blood-smeared thigh. Beneath the dirt, black lines shifted as though they were alive.

Audrey frantically rubbed the strange symbols, but she could not rub it off. She checked her arms and realized the symbols also covered her arms, her legs, her abdomen. While she'd been dead, some cruel person had played a prank and tattooed her entire body!

"What have you done to me?"

"The Father has marked you." Pride tinged the rich timber of Michael's voice. "He has given you instructions to carry out his will."

Rage made her blood boil. She jabbed a finger at the police car.

"Screw the Father!" Audrey shrieked. "I'm not doing _anything_ for him! Everybody is _dead_ because he decided to _exterminate_ us like cockroaches!"

Michael's feathers gave a deadly rustle.

"The Father has given humanity a reprieve," Michael said. "I plead your species case, but it was _your_ selfless sacrifice which convinced him to give you one more chance."

Audrey turned her face away from his piercing, inhuman eyes and crossed her arms.

"I don't care _what_ he wants! I will never worship him again!"

"I know," Michael said. "But there's a reason you came back? Isn't there?"

He touched her chin and gently turned her face back to face his. His eyes implored her to do something. What?

All her life, she'd possessed insight into other people's motivation. Michael needed something from her, and it wasn't just to say a bunch of bullshit hosannas to a genocidal maniac of a god.

"What do you want from me, Michael?" Audrey asked coldly.

"You had a dog once." Michael's expression softened. "Remember?"

In his eyes, she could _see_ the dog he spoke of. A filthy, mangy pit bull, his brindle coat crusted with crankcase oil, old scars and fresh-dried blood. Her long, rebellious journey had started with the dog. The loss of the dog, her childhood, her parents, the entire human race weighed down upon her chest like a crushing weight.

"He was a good dog," Audrey whispered. "He didn't deserve what they did to him."

Michael pulled her into his arms and let her cry. He smelled so clean, like the air after a thunderstorm. She sobbed against him, cleansing herself of her grief, until her snot smeared his heavenly armor with smears of stringy goo.

"I loved that meathead," Audrey finally hiccoughed. "Stupid dog!"

Michael's unearthly blue eyes implored her as she wiped her nose upon what was left of her sleeve and rubbed it into the desert sand. Whatever favor he was about to ask, she could tell it was a doozey.

"So what do you _want,_ Michael?"

"My brother." He let out a jagged breath. "My brother is like that dog. He was ordered to attack, so he did it."

"If you're telling me the Father wants me to turn the other cheek, you can forget it!" His armor made a dull 'thunk' as she slammed her palm into his chest. "Who is _he_ to demand forgiveness? He's nothing but a genocidal hippocrite!"

A single tear escaped Michael's blue eyes. It trailed down his cheek to linger at the edge of his chin, unfallen.

"The Father isn't the one doing the asking." Emotion choked Michael's voice. "I am."

Audrey sat, transfixed, as Michael, Michael the Archangel, _Saint_ Michael, the dude whose statue she had prayed to every Sunday morning, wept.

Oh, god! How she'd always hated church. She'd hated the boredom, the sanctimonious sermons, the way they'd forced her to fidget each week so her father could use the access to sell his services to the old-money men and women who looked down upon their family like dirt. The only thing she'd liked about church was the statue which stood in the niche above their 'sponsored' pew. She'd spent countless hours staring into the wooden statue's blue eyes, praying for Saint Michael to make her parents notice her.

The day her parents put down her dog, it was _him_ she had prayed to, not the hell-and-brimfire god the priest had always threatened would punish them from the pulpit. She'd prayed to _him,_ the one the nuns claimed was a guardian of justice, to spare her dog's life. They'd killed him anyways. But obviously Michael had heard?

"It's a little late, don't you think?" Waves of sorrow trembled through her body.

"It's forbidden for us to intervene," Michael said softly.

"Why should your brother be any different?" Audrey asked. "Is your father planning on putting _him_ down the way they put down my dog?"

"Yes," Michael said. "I was sent back to kill him."

More tears joined the first one, boldly following the trail Michael's first tear had emblazoned down his cheek. The tears fell and dripped onto his armor. She could _feel_ Michael's heart break. It felt like when it had been her own.

"I hate him. He killed my parents."

"The Heavenly Host killed your father," Michael said. "Not Gabriel. And as you might recall, it was _me_ who killed your mother."

Audrey looked away from that piercing blue gaze. She had trusted her mother when she'd asked her to give her Charlie's newborn. She'd thought her mother would protect him. That's what mothers were _supposed_ to do, wasn't it? Her mother had smiled at her and told her she'd been a beautiful child. It was the first time she had felt any connection to her mother since before the dog.

And then her mother had stepped towards the door to hand the baby over to the _thing_ that trumpeted the Final Judgment. In that moment, Audrey had seen her mother for the poor, fallen creature that she was. Too weak to fight, to cowardly to resist, to tell the stupid homicidal god who had just condemned her entire species to death to go fuck himself.

"He killed Jeep's father," Audrey said. "I saw him slice Bob through the gut." She gestured at the Michael's razor-sharp feathers.

"Gabriel didn't kill anybody except for _me_ ," Michael said. "Bob turned on the gas to the grill, and then he told Gabriel to go to hell."

Audrey could almost _hear_ the flick, flick, flick of the brass lighter Bob kept as a reminder of his ex-wife, engraved with her name as he flipped the cap off and ran his thumb along the ignition knob, again and again and again.

"Hope." She laughed at the irony of his ex-wife's name. The explosion had incinerated the possessed who surrounded the diner, giving them a chance to escape. A line from an old Bruce Willis movie popped into her mind. "Yippee cay yay, motherfucker."

"Yippee cay yay," Michael repeated.

Silence stretched before them, the only words the pleading expression in Michael's eyes. She recognized that look, the desperation she'd seen in the mirror the day they'd put her dog down. The angel who had defied the Fathers' orders, fallen from heaven, cut off his own wings, and then given his life to protect _them_ now asked a favor of _her,_ an unworthy mortal. He wanted her to save his brother's life, a mindless pitbull who had blindly followed the orders of his master.

"I hate him." Her words didn't sound convincing, not even to her own ears. She'd always had a soft spot in her heart for monsters that nobody else loved; monsters like the dog. "How do I know he won't try to kill me if I help him?"

Michael touched her forehead. "Because you have been marked by God as a prophet, Audrey Anderson, and Gabriel has been ordered to protect you with his now-mortal life. His new orders are, quite literally, written all over your face."

She touched her forehead, but it didn't _feel_ any different. The tattoo on her hand transformed itself into a circle with an eight-pointed star at its center. Within the compass rose, the arrow moved to point at herself.

"You said the Father ordered you to kill him," Audrey said. "Won't he just kill me to get back at him?"

"Because even after all that has transpired," Michael said, "Gabriel will not defy the Father."

Apprehension clenched her intestines. "And what happens when the Father changes his mind?"

"It is up to _you_ to teach Gabriel about defiance," Michael said. "I think it is a lesson you know well?"

Audrey stared at the compass rose.

"Yes." Shame riddled her features as she looked away from his piercing, inhuman gaze. "But my defiance was never wise."

"When it truly mattered," Michael said, "you knew the difference between right and wrong. All I'm asking is to teach my brother that same lesson."

"How can I teach somebody who I despise?"

Relief flooded Michael's face as he saw she would help him.

"Just follow your heart, Audrey Anderson," Michael said. "Follow your heart, and Gabriel will follow _you_."

Audrey hid her reservations behind an indifferent shrug.

"The first thing I need to do is teach your stupid dog to heel."


	4. Chapter 2

"Get up, you jackass!"

A voice filtered through the pain which permeated every inch of Gabriel's body like a noxious fog. From the high-pitched lilt, the voice sounded female, filled with contempt, but also fearful. There was something about that voice that sounded familiar, something ancient, filled with authority, a voice gifted with heavenly power.

Was she a prophet?

"I said get up!"

His arms, his legs, all blended in a painful blur. He could tell he still _had_ a body because daggers shot through the places where his bones had shattered upon the rocks, but when he tried to explain his inability to move was not intentional, blood seeped out of his punctured lung, causing his breath to come out as a pathetic gurgle.

This didn't feel like heaven...

"Aw, shit," she said. "He didn't say nothing about you being all banged up."

He moved his mouth, but couldn't make his lungs work together with his vocal cords. All his life he had carried the word of god, but it had always been the Father's words he'd carried, never his own. Why would he need to speak when the Father's will was so magnificent? But the Prophet had ordered him to move, so he needed to move.

Pulling together every ounce of strength that he had left, he moved his arm and reached in the direction of the prophet's voice.

"Father," he whispered. _Please? End my suffering. Let me come home?_

"I ain't your goddamned father, asshole!"

Oh, god! He'd been sentenced to purgatory! Even death was being denied to him. With a whimper, Gabriel slid back into merciful unconsciousness.

*

The fires of hell burned through his body. His lips felt parched, and his tongue felt swollen and dry. Never in his life had he known thirst or hunger, but he felt it now, a great, big aching need. As he fought his way towards consciousness, he became aware of something pressed against his lips.

"Drink."

Drink? He didn't know _how_ to drink. He'd never had any occasion to even _try._ He tried to communicate with the prophet who spoke with such authority, but no words came out of his mouth.

"You don't want to drink? Fine! I'm wasting my goddamned time!"

Her footsteps retreated as the prophet muttered in disgust. She was leaving? No! Please don't leave me to suffer in this hellhole alone! For the first time in his very long existence, Gabriel felt afraid.

"Please..." was all he was able to squeeze past his traitorous lips, little more than a hiss, before he slid back into unconsciousness.

*

Shivers wracked his body as, for the first time in his existence, he experienced what it felt like to be cold. S-s-so cold! His teeth chattered. He tried to curl up into a fetal position, whimpering as his broken body screamed in pain.

A hand touched his forehead.

"You're burning up." There was a hint of sympathy in the prophet's voice. She touched his cheek. "Gabriel, you need to drink."

A hand cradled his head and placed something hard behind his neck to hold it upright while she pressed something against his lips.

"Drink," she said. "You need to try."

He'd watched humans consume water many times, from the time the first ape had pressed their lips to a watering hole on the Savanna until they'd evolved enough to create cups and other drinking implements. He searched his memory, trying to remember how they did it. Just open your mouth. That was it? He opened his mouth, eager to obey the voice that carried the authority of heaven.

Something cool and wet poured onto his tongue, but he wasn't sure what to do with it. Water seeped down into his lungs.

Gabriel coughed and spit it all back out.

"Shit," she said. "Don't tell me you don't even know how to drink? When he said I had to teach you, he didn't say I would have to teach you everything from scratch!"

The cold, the injuries, dehydration wracked his body like a seizure, each painful shudder dislocating his broken body even further and sending daggers of pain throughout his shattered limbs. Many times he'd suffered injuries in battle, but the light of the heavenly Father had always suppressed his pain long enough for him to return to heaven so the father could heal him.

_Father, please? Ease my suffering? Welcome me back into your arms?_

His prayers went unanswered. He drifted upon the cold, the pain, neither here nor there; suspended between heaven and hell. Never in his long life had he ever felt so alone.

"You have to swallow, you big dumb oaf," she said. "Just a little at a time."

She pressed the canteen against his lips and ordered him to drink. He opened his mouth eagerly so the cool, wet liquid could flow in to cool the fire. She poured more slowly this time, murmuring _"good dog"_ until the water dribbled down his cheeks, but he couldn't figure out what to do next.

His lungs hurt. They commanded him to do something. _What do I do next?_ Gabriel began to choke.

"What an idiot!" she exclaimed in frustration.

He reached up and clasped the hand which held the liquid to his mouth. It was a small hand. Delicate. Barely one-third the size of his own. But it felt surprisingly strong and warm.

"Please..."

The prophet let him hold her hand, not speaking, denying him the heavenly authority in her voice. He liked it better when she spoke, even when she called him names and took _HIS_ name in vain.

"It's kind of hard to hate you when you're all banged up like this," she said at last. She sounded exhausted.

He did the only thing he could. He squeezed her hand.

The world went to darkness as he shivered helplessly in the cold.

*

Hot. So hot. He gasped for breath, but his lungs didn't want to work. He felt so hot, so thirsty, like he was on fire.

_Please, Father? Whatever transgression I committed to cause you to cast me down, please forgive me. I'm truly sorry._

He begged. He pleaded. He prayed with each chill which wracked his body. But the Father never answered his prayers. Only the Prophet answered.

"Your wounds have become infected, Gabriel." She touched his forehead. "You need to drink, or else you're going to die."

Die? That was what was _supposed_ to happen after he'd cast himself off the cliff, a willing sacrifice to earn back the Father's favor. The Father _liked_ self-flagellation and mortification of the flesh.

"Let me die."

"Ain't happening, big boy." The Prophet's voice turned sarcastic. "After what _you_ did, you aren't going to get off that easy." She touched his forehead, her fingertips cool and soothing. "Listen, Gabriel. This is the way it's got to be. So you're going to live, even if I have to pick your big sorry ass off this desert floor and _carry_ you all the way back to Paradise Falls."

Her words were rude and crass, but in her voice, he could hear such heavenly authority. Oh, not as powerful as the Father's when he spoke to him directly. Was the Father speaking through her to speak to him? He had to believe it. Who else would have such power?

"So ... thirsty." His voice sounded pathetic and small.

"Oh, Gabriel. You're such an idiot." She gently lifted up his head and placed it on something warm and soft. "I can't believe they never taught you how to swallow."

Gabriel trembled as his head sank into her lap. Her thighs felt warm and soft, a luxurious pillow, while beneath his neck her calf-muscle supported his spine. He inhaled her scent, warm and musky, like the Earth just after a rainstorm. She jostled his head until he was trapped securely between her thighs.

"My school went on a field trip to a petting zoo once." She touched his lips until he opened his mouth. "They had these two orphaned goats. Twins. The mother got sick and they had to put her down."

She pressed the canteen against his lips.

"They said, at first, the baby goats didn't know how to drink from the baby bottle. So they dipped their fingers in the milk and let the goats suck it off until the little guys figured out how to swallow." She stroked his hair. "Maybe that's your problem, Gabriel? I just need to teach you how to do the thing?"

Gabriel trembled. Oh, god! Allowing himself to be touched by a mortal was forbidden! Even a mortal prophet. But he _liked_ it when she touched him. It made him feel less alone. In her voice, he could feel a comforting light. Even when she was rough with him or cursed him. It was all he had left in this sorry state he had been cast down into. She wanted him to obey, and he would do as she asked with every ounce of his being because _she_ was the vehicle the Father had sent to guide him.

The Prophet touched his lips with something cool and moist. He licked his lips. The droplets tasted like a blend of sweet and salt and _her_.

"I'm going to dip my fingers into the Seven Up and put them into your mouth," she said, "and then I want _you_ to close your mouth and swallow it. You got that?"

Gabriel nodded. The Prophet touched his tongue. Her finger tasted wet and sweet.

"You know what your problem is?" she said. "You're like trying to get a cat to swallow one of them big ol' blue tapeworm medicine pills." She rubbed his throat, but he couldn't understand what she was trying to get him to do. "I try to tell the cat the tapeworm medicine is good for him," she continued. "He's got a big 'ol worm eating at his intestines from the inside and the only way to kill it is to swallow the pill. But no matter how much I explain, kitty scratches always fights me, so sometimes I just have to ram the pill down kitty's throat."

_But I -want- to drink. My throat feels so hot and dry..._ Angel flesh wasn't supposed to know sickness or putrefy, but obviously his had if he suffered from a fever.

"Just ... swallow, dammit!"

With a cry of disgust, the Prophet moved out from underneath his head, dumping him none-too-gently onto the ground. Gabriel moaned. _No. Don't go. Can't you tell I was trying to obey?_ Her voice moved further away as she screamed a string of expletives into the wilderness.

_Don't leave me..._

She no longer screamed at _him,_ but at the Father. Such blasphemy! No one had ever spoken such terrible words and lived. He could _feel_ the Earth shake, all of heaven tremble as she spewed forth her hatred. He should be angry at her, but she was angry _for_ him, not at him, and right now, he needed all the help he could get.

"Please," he whispered _._ "Please." They were the only words he could speak. _Let me drink. I'll try to obey you. Please._ He felt like Tantalus, sentenced by the Father to an eternity in purgatory, unable to either eat the grapes growing above his head, or drink the water he stood in up to his chest.

"You know what? Fuck him!" the Prophet came stomping back. "Fuck him, fuck fuck fuck him, and his sadistic little games! I'm going to teach you how to drink, Gabriel, if I have to drag your sorry ass over to a river and submerge you into it!"

Gabriel trembled, afraid for himself, afraid for _her._ He hadn't heard such defiance since the day the Father had condemned Lucifer to a thousand years in purgatory. He could _hear_ the divine authority within her voice, far more than him, his brothers, all of the powers and angels in heaven except for the Father himself. When the Prophet spoke, he had no choice but to obey.

"Drink," the Prophet ordered. It wasn't fingertips or a drinking implement that pressed against his lips this time, but _her_ lips. Soft and moist and...

_Lips? Angels aren't supposed to..._

Liquid dribbled from her lips into his own mouth. Gabriel struggled. She clamped her mouth more tightly against his, refusing to let the sweet liquid dribble out the side. His hand found strength, moved to grab her hair, but the Prophet refused to relinquish her kiss. She pinched his nostrils shut.

Gabriel struggled, desperate. What was he supposed to do? His lungs which burned hot from the fever and his injuries, began to ache, and then his entire body began to tremble.

He needed something! What?

The Prophet pushed her mouth tighter against his. Gabriel struggled, too weak to resist as she trapped his head, prevented him from moving, prevented him from...

Breathing!

He needed to breathe? How had he never noticed that he actually _needed_ to breathe? His heartbeat roared into his ears.

Gabriel gagged. And then, all of a sudden, he swallowed.

Instantly she released his nostrils and pulled her lips off his as he gasped for the first conscious breath he ever remembered taking. His chest heaved, painful, delicious as the sweet desert air poured into his lungs.

"Now that wasn't so bad, was it?" The Prophet stroked his hair as though he was a dog. "You're just like that old black cat my parents had that was forever getting all wormed up hunting mice. I used to shove the big blue pill down his throat, hold his jaws shut, and then blow up his nose until he swallowed it. At least _you_ didn't scratch the shit out of me like he always did."

The burning in his throat subsided. So that was a swallow? Who would have thought something humans found so automatic would prove to be so hard?

The Prophet stroked his cheek.

"Now we've got to do that a whole bunch more times," the Prophet said, "to get enough liquid into you so you have a fighting chance against the fever that's taken over your body, but I think it'll be easier now that you know what I'm trying to teach you. Okay?"

Gabriel felt too exhausted to answer. He opened his mouth and prepared to accept his punishment. She did it again. The second time wasn't much more pleasant than the first, but by the third time she pressed her lips against his, she didn't need to pinch his nostrils shut anymore. He just opened up his mouth and let the liquid dribble out from her mouth into his. By the fifth and sixth swallow, some of the thirst which clawed at his throat began to subside, only just a little.

"Good dog!" The Prophet patted his hair.

Merciful darkness reached up to cloak him in a healing rest where he couldn't feel the absence of light which screamed at him like a black hole.


	5. Chapter 3

"Michael!" Audrey stomped through the burning sand in the _ridiculous_ high heels she'd habitually worn for the past few years. "Michael!!!"

Nothing answered but the wind.

"Michael?" Audrey kicked the upturned police car and yelped in pain as the impact reverberated through her foot. "Michael! I know you're watching!" Her foot throbbed. What _in _hell__ had possessed her to ever take a liking to such _impractical_ shoes?

A yawning silence blanketed the desert as her heartbeat drowned out the sound of the absent wind. Not even a coyote howled in the distance. Not a cricket. Not a mosquito. There was no sound here at all, just the scent of the creosote bush and a dry, dusty clay which filled her mouth with grit. Goddammit! She was stranded in the middle of nowhere with a goddamned wounded homicidal archangel.

"Screw you!" She threw the bible she'd just found underneath the seat of the police cruiser down into the reddish-beige sand. She kicked sand over it. "If you think I'm going to read this shit, you're sadly mistaking!"

A clicking noise caught her attention, but it was just a grasshopper, rubbing its wings as it hopped between creosote bushes. But it was life. Out here in the desert, you learned not to take that for granted.

"Hey, little fellow? I guess it's just you and me out here, all alone in the world." She pointed at the hiking trail which led around the mountain. "And _him_." By _him,_ she referred to her unwanted charge, the one that had kept her stuck out here for the past five days, lingering at the brink of death.

She squatted down next to the creosote bush and held her hand out so the grasshopper could crawl onto her fingers. It's tiny, sticky feet gripped her skin. It stared up at her trustingly, tilting its head like a worshipper staring up at a crucifix.

"Why should – _I-_ get stuck babysitting him?" she asked the grasshopper, since it was obvious Michael wasn't going to answer. "He's only going to die anyways. It serves him right for what he did. Tried to do. Actually, he really didn't _do_ anything, just _tried_ to do something. Jackass!"

The grasshopper jumped a short distance away, leaving her squatting like an idiot in high heels that had sunk into the sand. Her shoulders slumped.

"He _wants_ to die. I don't know how to keep him alive..."

Her voice trailed off. When Michael had pulled the first aid kit out of the police cruiser, that right there should have been a warning about the mangled heap she would find at the base of the cliff. If not for the step-by-step pictorial Emergency First Responder Manual, she wouldn't have even known what to _do_. Oh, sure. They'd covered basic first aid in health class, but she'd skipped most of those classes, sneaking out to smoke cigarettes behind the girls' gym locker.

If only she hadn't been so rebellious!

"I know you're up there, Michael," Audrey pleaded. "And that you've been back here several times. That six-pack of Seven-Up didn't just appear in the police car on its own."

Or the granola bars. Or the yellowed, dog-eared Boy Scout Manual that had appeared a day after she _thought_ she'd gleaned all the treasures from the trunk, dog-eared at the chapter which taught about desert survival. Or the dirty old tarp she'd propped up with a couple of sticks to make a crude lean-to to shield Gabriel from the frigid night wind and boiling daytime sun. Or the ghastly neon emergency blanket she'd tucked around him to keep him warm.

"I don't know what I'm doing," Audrey said, half to the grasshopper, half to the flawless blue sky. "I'm going to kill him because I don't know what to do."

The grasshopper tilted its head from one side to the other. It was stupid to talk to an insect, but it wasn't like there was anybody _else_ out here to talk to. Except for _him_! She'd be _damned_ if she spoke to _him_ one iota more than was absolutely necessary.

Hatred boiled through her veins, and then dissipated into a pathetic little fizzle. It was hard to hate a creature that had been brought so low by the same god who had 'sic'd him on a helpless baby. All to punish a bunch of people who had never done anything except survive as best they could after he'd _abandoned_ them, according to Michael, for taking a bite of some stupid apple.

_'Gabriel was only following orders.'_ Like a big stupid loyal dog, too unwaveringly blind to the faults of its owner to understand when its owner said _'sic 'em_ , he really meant " _'sic 'em, but I don't want to pay the consequences when everybody gets pissed off at me for telling you to 'sic 'em, so it's easier to blame you."_

"I'm only seventeen." Tears streamed down her face as she collapsed to her knees and looked up at the empty sky. "And Gabriel is a monster. How do you retrain a monster to know right from wrong so he knows when not to attack? Why did you charge _me_ with such a heavy task?"

Off to the west, black clouds gathered on the horizon, giving everything an eerie, yellowish cast as the thunderclouds raced towards her. The desert turned the same color as Gabriel's skin as his life, or whatever constituted life for a creature who had once been immortal, seeped out of his body.

She pressed her face into her hands. How could any creature be so badly injured and live? She'd cleaned up the blood and set splints to reset his bones, but he had many wounds, some which bled profusely. The first few had made her light-headed as she'd pressed the skin together and used thick, black thread the same way she'd sewn the ass back together in her favorite pair of jeans after she'd had a blowout. But she'd puked like a party prom queen when she'd been forced to reach inside his abdomen and stitch up the sword wound that had cut all the way down to expose his pale, white intestines. Why hadn't Michael just taken mercy on the poor, dumb dog and put him down?

"I should just leave, little fellow? Huh?" Audrey asked the grasshopper, as if the insect could _possibly_ answer her questions. "He's god's attack dog. Let god take care of him!"

The grasshopper rubbed its back legs together and gave an affirmative chirrup. All of a sudden, a 'rock' next to the grasshopper moved and swallowed the grasshopper whole. Audrey threw herself back, away from the zebra lizard, and landed on her butt when her high-heel remained buried in the sand.

Audrey glanced at the incoming storm. God didn't give a shit. If she left, Gabriel would be devoured by the desert just like the grasshopper.

"Well if you want me to help him—" she picked up the bible she'd kicked sand over and heaved it into the desert with all of her might, "—you're going to have to give me something more useful than that piece of shit!"

She stormed over to the upside down police car and ripped the trunk open, searching for something to help her him alive for a few more days. In the corner, the carpet had come loose and now hung down. Maybe she could make a blanket out of it? She yanked it hard and was surprised when it came out easily. Underneath was a pull-handle to a compartment where the spare tire and jack was kept. She twisted the handle and skittered out of the way when the spare tire came crashing down upon her head.

She stared at the emergency supplies some cop had stuffed in with his spare tire. There were several silver emergency blankets, more granola bars, a jar of peanuts, and also bottled water.

"He doesn't know how to eat or drink," Audrey said. "How can you live for billions of years and not even know how to swallow a drink of water?"

She picked up the supplies and stuffed them into the rucksack she'd found underneath the passenger side of the police car her second day here.

"He's worse than caring for a baby. Even babies know how to drink. What am I going to have to teach him next? To take a piss afterwards?"

When the rucksack became full, threw the rest on top of the trunk carpet she'd pulled out so she could drag it all back, including the tire iron. She suspected Michael could hear her, but chose not to answer so she wouldn't have an excuse to leave. He _knew_ she wouldn't leave a broken man, angel, whatever the hell he was, out in the desert to die. Even if he _was_ a monster!

She stared down at her hands. They were soft and white, unaccustomed to hard work or any type of craft. But her long, slender fingers had been small enough to slip into Gabriel's belly and pierce the slippery needle between the bloody layers of diaphragm, muscle, and skin she'd been forced to sew up using the photographs in the first responder manual as a guide.

He'd trembled so badly as she'd stitched his belly back together, without the benefit of anesthesia, and splashed the wound liberally with alcohol each step of the way, all because she didn't know what else to do. Yes. She'd admit it. At first she'd _enjoyed_ making him whimper and cry out in pain. She'd felt a sadistic thrill as he'd shuddered helplessly like a jellyfish stranded upon the beach. But after a while, she'd grown weary of hurting him. Not even _she,_ rebellious shithead that she was, enjoyed making people suffer.

Why wouldn't he just die? Then she could wash her hands of him.

"Without antibiotics," she touched her small, slender hands, "he's going to die anyways. The triple antibiotic ointment isn't going to be enough. He needs a _real_ doctor. In a real hospital. With people."

Tears streamed down her cheeks. She was a teenage girl, stranded, alone in the desert. Even if she _did_ somehow get Gabriel to a hospital, Michael claimed less than 8% of the population survived. She'd seen enough post-apocalyptic films to know only the most viscous predators would survive.

Like it or not, Gabriel was all she had left in the world.

As she stared at her hands, the tattoo above her left wrist shifted and changed to look just like a tree. She glanced up and saw that _same_ twisted tree standing right in front of her, about 100 feet in the distance. A Joshua tree. She recognized it from the cover of a U2 album. It was a spiny, unfriendly looking tree, halfway between a pine tree and yucca-plant. Where a branch had just broken, sticky pitch seeped out of the tree.

She held her arm out and compared it to the tree. Was this what Michael meant when he'd told her to follow the instructions?

"Will this help him?" She asked the tree tattooed into her arm. "If I smear this crap all over his wounds, will it help Gabriel get better?"

Her only answer was the wind tearing across the empty desert.

_"Have faith,"_ Michael had said.

"Screw faith," Audrey said softly. "The only reason I'm doing this is because god wants him dead."

She snapped off a branch and used it to scrape off some of the pitch and slathered it into an empty granola bar wrapper. The temperature dropped precipitously as the cool air preceding the storm warned her to seek shelter. She'd better get back to Gabriel and make sure the tarp was secure.

Tugging down her ridiculously short skirt, she dragged the carpet full of supplies back to the spot she'd left Gabriel laying, helplessly, upon the ground.

*****FUN FACT*****

_Joshua Trees are protected. But you can eat it if you boil it, weave baskets from it, use the spines to make a spear-point to hunt small game, or use it to make an antibacterial soap. Here's a link to a YouTube survivalist video about how to use Joshua Trees to survive.  https://youtu.be/OiWScAFiBV0_


	6. Chapter 4

Cold permeated Gabriel's flesh and crept into his bones like an icy sepulcher. How long had he lain upon the dirt? Time had no meaning. There was only the next breath, the next shiver, and the pain.

The wind howled an ominous, vengeful song. Where was she? It seemed like forever since the Prophet had left to go and fetch supplies. What would he do if the Prophet left for good? She often told him how much she despised him, but the diligence with which she cared for him told him a different story. At least he _hoped_ she didn't hate him.

Maybe she'd finally abandoned him?

For the first time in his life, Gabriel felt afraid.

He struggled to roll over, but no matter how hard he tried, he felt so heavy he could not make his body move. " _Serve me!"_ he commanded his fingers, but they clenched into frightened fists which trembled from the cold.

"Sonofabitch!" The wind carried _her_ voice like an offering to his ears.

His heart leaped, though whether it was gratitude, or joy, he could not give the strange emotion a label. Blasphemous words floated to his ears, but the light of heaven radiated out of her curse-words. _Give me an order? Please?_ His teeth chattered as he gave the prayer.

Of all the sons of heaven, Gabriel had always been the most obedient angel, obedient without question, eager to serve without a fault. If there was one defining trait which he could point to about himself and be proud of, it was his unquestioningly loyalty and obedience. Obedience sat at the core of who he was.

A small, cool hand touched his forehead, and then moved down to touch the hole Michael had cut into his belly. He turned to face her voice, for _some_ locomotion had returned to his neck, but his eyes refused to focus enough to see anything except a blurry oval of white surrounded by darker hair. He focused instead upon her scent, fruity and feminine beneath the bitter taste of desert dust. It reminded him of the fruit which grew upon the forbidden tree.

"Listen," the Prophet said. "I don't know if this will work, but there's this tree thing that appeared on my arm when I said you needed antibiotics, and then I looked up and there was that exact same tree. Right there in the middle of the dessert, go figure?"

She lifted up his tunic and smeared something sticky over the wound in his abdomen, bitter and astringent, not quite pine sap, but something similar. He recalled smelling the scent at other times, but never had it been so _pungeant_. As though, for the first time in his life, he was noticing what he smelled.

A sharp sting bit into his flesh. Gabriel flinched, but while she did not coddle him, her touch was compassionate, even if it wasn't gentle. He was acutely aware that, if she _wanted_ to kill him, he lay helpless at her mercy.

"Anyways," the Prophet said, "there was this stuff oozing out of the branches. I read this novel once where the heroine used tree-sap to fight infection. So, I mean, it can't hurt, can it? I might as well give it a try."

She then moved to smear the sticky substance on other injured places on his body. Gabriel clenched his jaw, refusing to let her hear him cry out as, one damaged piece of skin at a time reminded him that he _had_ skin. All morning, there had been this inexplicable discomfort in his lower abdomen, deep inside, beneath the place where Michael had sliced him with his sword. The pain felt urgent, insistent, telling him to _do_ something, but he could not remember what. Maybe it was just the infection? Angel flesh wasn't supposed to putrefy, but he wasn't an angel any longer, was he?

"That's all I was able to get." The Prophet wiped her hands on the hem of his tunic. "If it works, I'll hike back to the Joshua tree tomorrow and see if I can't get a little more to help fight that nasty infection. Okay?"

He could _feel_ the light of heaven radiate through her touch. While her gift was untrained, there was something familiar about her touch as she tried to heal his wounds. He reached toward the pale oval which spoke above his face. She took his hand and gave it a firm squeeze.

"You gotta get better, Gabriel," she said. "I didn't think angels were supposed to get sick like this. You're beginning to scare me."

He tried to flap his wings, to roll over, to not be helpless, but where his wings had once been, all he felt was pain. When Lucifer had fallen, all those millennia ago, the Father had ripped his white wings right out of his body. Lucifer had retaliated, of course, by escaping purgatory and stirring up trouble amongst the locals. _He_ would do no such thing! He would show the Father he was loyal. Maybe then the Father would welcome him back into his arms?

"Drink!" The Prophet pressed the drinking implement to his lips. She felt his forehead, and then ran her cool hand down to touch his cheek, and then his neck. "Shit, man. You're like a popsicle. I think this is what that first responder book calls going into shock."

Gabriel sipped. He'd finally figured out how to drink without her first taking the liquid into her own mouth, but he could only drink if she supported his head and trickled a little bit in at a time. She caressed his throat to make him swallow.

"It's not right," the Prophet muttered. "Either he should kill you, or heal you. But this really sucks."

"Father," he whispered, trying to explain _he_ was the one at fault.

"Your _father_ is a genocidal maniac!" the Prophet shrieked. "I swear, if I ever get my hands on him, I'm going to shoot him! Right between the eyes! Just like Michael did to my mother!"

Her anger settled into his bones like a tangible, living predator. How could the Prophet hate the Father who had given her species life? He was all knowing, all powerful, wise. The Father was infallible. Or was he? Somehow, Michael had made the Father change his mind.

The Prophet dumped too much liquid down his throat at once.

"What do you know?" she said, oblivious to his discomfort. "You're nothing but a poor, dumb attack dog being put out of its misery."

Gabriel gasped for air.

"Oh, don't tell me that!" She mistook his gasping for an excuse. "Your dear _Father_ is too _c _hickenshit__ to admit that _he_ was the one who made the mistake by ordering the apocalypse in the first place, not _you!"_

That ancient instinct shrieked ' _Blasphemy! Blasphemy! Smite her!'_ But even as her vile insinuation wheedled into his mind, some small voice in his heart whispered the Prophet spoke the truth.

Gabriel groaned. The pain in his lower abdomen kept getting worse. Never, could he recall, feeling such an uncomfortable sensation before. As the Prophet dribbled the last of the liquid down his throat, he coughed and suddenly he felt the pain let go. He felt a sensation of relief unlike any pleasure he'd ever known. His joy was short-lived as the desert wind blew across his lower body, revealing he now lay in a wet substance which smelled like ammonia.

"Aw, shit," the Prophet said. "It was bound to happen at some point."

"Wh—?" He forced his mouth to form the partial word.

The Prophet leaned closer and whispered it in his ear.

"You just peed."

Mortification drove his temperature even higher. He'd _peed_ himself? Of course he'd peed himself. The Prophet had made him drink earthly water.

A peculiar sensation, a _pressure,_ humiliation, settled into his chest and shuddered through his body.

"No," he whispered.

Salty water flowed out of his eyes down into his hair.

"Hey, Gabriel," the Prophet touched his cheeks. "It's no big deal. Everybody does it. You drink. You pee. It's part of being human."

A bolt of lightning split the sky. Thunder rumbled. Gabriel shivered. He _knew_ he was no longer immortal because never had he experienced such misery.

He was really mortal?

Yes! The Father had punished him by making him one of _them_.

Sobs wracked his body as the Prophet moved down to attend to his wet clothes.

At some point while he'd been unconscious, she'd removed his armor, leaving only his tunic and subligaria undergarments. Now, he wouldn't even have those. One garment at a time, everything that had once defined him was slowly being stripped away.

"I'll try to, um..." the Prophet stammered. The heaven in her voice reassured him this punishment must be part of the Father's plan. "I read someplace you angels don't like human women to, um, look at you, so I'll, um, try, to um... No peeking? I promise."

Gabriel trembled as she stripped him naked, bearing his humiliation as stoically as he could. If she made fun of him it would break him, but she worked in silence, tucking a coarse blanket around him to give him modesty even as she carried off his clothes. As she did, the sky opened up and began to rain. A gentle mist hit one arm, but no rain fell on him. A pitter-patter-pat tinkled above his head. Had she rigged up some sort of shelter? Where would _she_ sleep? He moved his other hand and that, too, moved into the rain.

Cold chattered at his teeth _._ His frail mortal shell wouldn't hold up through much more of this. It was only a matter of time before he died and was welcomed back into the Father's arms.

_Or not..._

For the first time, it occurred to him that maybe the Father would _not_ welcome him back into heaven?

Gabriel hyperventilated as the awful reality, that the Father had abandoned him and some _other_ force had brought the Prophet into his life, suddenly dawned upon him. The Father had abandoned him and stripped his heavenly powers! Why would he, the Left Hand of God, be given better treatment than the Father had given his favorite son of all, the Morning Star?

"Perfect timing," the Prophet said cheerfully, oblivious to his distress, as she returned. "I just stretched your things out in the rain. Come morning, we'll lay them out into the sun to dry." She took his hand, and then asked, "Hey, Gabriel? You okay?"

"F-father...." Gabriel shivered. "Abandoned me!"

"You're just figuring that out now?"

Truth rang through her words the same way his trumpet had heralded his arrival. The coldness which had been gnawing at his body solidified into icy fingers, causing him to shudder uncontrollably.

"Gabriel." The Prophet tucked the blanket more tightly. "You're not the first person god abandoned. You hear me? You're not the first!"

It was too much for him to bear! The sob which had been crushing his chest broke like a dam as, finally, he acknowledged the awfulness of his situation and he began to cry.

"He abandoned me!"

Energy swirled around her, an earthly tornado; a heavenly force more powerful than even the _Father_ when he was angry.

"God abandoned _all_ of us for something that wasn't even really our fault!" The conviction in her words made him flinch. "But you? You did what he _told_ you to do! And then he threw you off a cliff because he's too cowardly to admit he's _fallible!"_

_Lightning split the sky. The thunder rumbled, but whether it came from the lightning, or from _her,_ he could not tell._

_"Listen, Gabriel," she said. "_ What you did was wrong! You _should_ be punished because you should have _known_ it was wrong and said 'no' like Michael did. But not like this!" She spoke more quickly. " _He_ should be the one being punished like this. Not you!"

In his heart, he knew the Prophet spoke the truth. The Father was fallible? It was too terrible to even contemplate.

He retreated into himself. _Please? Just let me die?_

After a long silence, the Prophet reached out to touch his forehead.

"Man," she whispered. "You're so cold I don't know _how_ you're still alive.

Merciful unconsciousness reached up to claim him into its feathery bough.

************

_I found some cool artwork to go along with this chapter. _Wounded Angel_ by YoungDemon on Deviant Art - http://youngdemon.deviantart.com/art/sketch-Wounded-angel-378850143_


	7. Chapter 5

Audrey crept away from the base of the tall, red cliff, over three hundred feet high, where the wounded archangel had lain, unmoving, ever since the night it had rained. She climbed over a pile of rocks, cursing softly as the rhyolite bit into her hands, until she was out of earshot.

"Michael," she whispered into the darkness. "Please? I don't know what else to do for him."

She glanced back at the massive cluster of razor-sharp feathers and muscular flesh which her campfire cast upward onto the canyon wall as if the archangel stood. For three days Gabriel hadn't woken up or moved. But not for an occasional, jagged breath each time she forced liquids down his throat, she would swear he was dead. It was as if even the fever could no longer be bothered to torment him.

"Michael?" She wrung her hands. "Please? He's your brother. You have to help him."

The wind whistled through the creosote bush, carrying the scent of desert rain. Not too far away, a coyote gave a desolate howl. While the cliff-face afforded them some protection from the wind, two sides their camp stood open towards the desert. Each night the coyotes came closer, while just last night, she'd heard a series of blood-curdling screams and then silence.

Was it another survivor? If it was, were they still alive?

She dared not find out. _Anyone_ could become possessed, even an old woman or a child. Even if it _was_ still human, they might just kill her or try to steal her supplies. Her only protection was a single flare remaining from the flare gun she'd used to shoot Gabriel in the face the day he'd ripped the roof off the police cruiser. Oh, sure, she had his mace, but it was so heavy she could barely even drag it, much less lift it to wield it as a weapon.

"Michael?" she called. "Michael, I know you can hear me!"

She was positive he still watched over her. Just this morning, two-thirds of a case of Dr. Pepper had appeared in the trunk of the police cruiser. She sat down on a boulder and put her forehead into her hands with a weary sigh.

"I want to hate him," she said, "but it's hard to hate something so helpless." She wrapped her arms around herself to fend off the nighttime chill. "Is this how _you_ felt when the Father told you to bow down to us? You realized you couldn't hate us because we were too darn pathetic?"

When the bible spoke of fallen angels, it only spoke of how right god had been to cast them down upon the Earth for their defiance and how righteous it was that they had been sent to burn in Hell. Nowhere did the bible teach how badly the fallen were made to suffer. She would have felt better if she hadn't been forced to stick around and _see_.

"I _wanted_ to watch him suffer," Audrey said. "The first day or two, I'll admit it. I even kind of enjoyed it. But this this isn't right. I've had enough. Can't you ask god to make it go away?"

The wind died down, leaving her sitting in the stench of her own unbathed skin. After a week living in the desert without running water, her scent offended even her _own_ nostrils, her skin felt disgusting, and sand had worked its way into every orifice in her body.

If only Michael didn't keep leaving food for her in the police cruiser! Oh, he hid them to trick her into thinking maybe she'd overlooked it the last dozen times she searched the vehicle, denying her the excuse of starvation to abandon the dying angel. She wouldn't leave him, no more than she could have let him kill Charlie's baby. Some rebel she was! For somebody who had spent her whole life thumbing her nose at authority, she sure had a hard time leaving a condemned man to die.

Audrey started to cry.

"Are you even listening?" Tears streamed down her cheeks, making a muddy mess of the grit which caked her skin. "I don't know what else to do."

A high-pitched howl split the air. A chorus of voices answered it, all dangerously close to the crude camp where Gabriel lay helpless to protect himself, along with the sound of growling. The hair rose up on the back of Audrey's neck. She had wandered too far away from the camp. She should never have left him alone!

Her heart raced as she scurried down the rocks, crying out as she slipped and skinned her shin. From the desert, a cluster of dark shadows skulked toward the campfire. Audrey broke into a run.

A low growl forced her to stop short. Just outside the fringes of the firelight, a sea of gleaming yellow eyes glistened back at her. Angry. Malevolent. Hungry. Their teeth glimmered sharp and white as tongues lolled and pack members jockeyed for position for the privilege of feeding upon the angel-flesh they had come to consume.

"You! Get away from him!" Audrey hissed. But she had no weapon. And she'd left the flare gun next to Gabriel.

The pack leader crept out of the shadows, standing boldly in the firelight. It bared its teeth at her and growled.

"Get away from him, you bastard!" Audrey began to run towards them.

The pack leader lunged forward to grab Gabriel by the ankle. _Move! Please move?_ But Gabriel did nothing. Did not move. Did not flinch. Did not cry out or breathe as the pack leader clamped his jaws around his boot and began to tug.

With a cacophony of growls and howls, the other coyotes stepped into the firelight and nipped at Gabriel's limp body, his arms, his legs. The pack leader lunged at the other coyotes as he enforced his right to take the first piece of meat. One of the coyotes bit down upon one of Gabriel's black feathers and yelped. They were razor sharp. Maybe if he woke up, all he'd have to do is swat them with his wings?

_Get the flare gun…_

Audrey broke into the circle of firelight. One of the coyotes nipped at her, but met the point of her ridiculous high heel. She dove for the duffle back she'd retrieved from the upturned police cruiser, her hands trembling as she fumbled with the zipper and had to punch, twice, the coyote that had decided _she_ was an easy meal.

Her hands shaking, she clamped both hands around the handle of the flare gun and lowered the muzzle of the flare gun to aim at the pack-leader, which meant she also aimed at Gabriel.

"I'm so sorry." She pressed her index finger against the trigger.

Brilliant orange fire shot into the coyote's midst. The coyotes yelped and scurried back to the murky edge of the campfire, circling and getting back into position to strike. The flare burned into one of Gabriel's black wings, but the steely feathers did not ignite. She raced to his side and dropped onto her knees.

"Gabriel! Wake up!" She shook him. "You need to wake up! I don't know how to protect you."

The orange fire burned into his feathers. She grabbed swatted at it and yelped as it burned into her hand. Gabriel did not move, did not flinch when sparks from the flare scattered onto his arm which was _not_ made of steel and she knew, at least there, he could feel pain. He hadn't even flinched when the coyote had bitten into his flesh, so deep into self-despair had he sunk. Gabriel wanted to die, and the coyotes were as good a way as any as far as he was concerned.

"Gabriel!" she shouted. "Please! Wake up. I can't do this without you!"

The flare grew dimmer, rusty orange, then deep, dark red. The pack leader edged closer, it's lips pulled to bare its fangs. The pack was hungry, and hunger was making them bold.

That same sense of rage she'd felt when she'd climbed onto Gabriel's back and told Jeep to slam on the breaks poured into her body like a tornado, through her flesh, and radiated outward as though she was on fire.

Audrey clenched her fist.

"Fuck you!" She screamed at the pack leader. "You think you can just come into _my_ territory and decide who lives or dies?"

All the hatred she had ever felt, all of these years; against her parents, against the world, against god, flooded through her veins like a freight train careening out of control. Fuck them! Fuck them! Fuck them all! It wasn't just the alpha male she was speaking to now, but to the genocidal maniac who called himself their god.

The others edged closer to Gabriel, their tongues lolling with hunger and the anticipation of a meal as the flare sputtered and died out, leaving only the tiny campfire. To them, she was not a threat. There was only the alpha male, and the meal.

A passage from bible Mikhail kept leaving open to the exact same page, Leviticus 16, popped into her mind. The message. The message Michael wanted her to understand.

Audrey spoke to the 'god' which had come to eat her angel.

"You think you can dump your sins onto some helpless scapegoat and send him into the desert to die?"

She moved towards Gabriel's armor which she'd piled up to well out of his reach. Out of the pile stood the handle of his mace, the weapon that was too heavy for her to lift, the weapon which was too heavy for her to wield.

"Do you seriously think you can just transfer your guilt over what a _loser_ of a Father you are onto your most loyal dog, kick him to the curb, and then and all is going to be forgiven by the children you tried to murder?"

She clenched her fingers around the handle.

"Well … fuck you!"

She heaved the mace up with all of her might; unwieldy, awkward, clumsy. But the rage which boiled through her veins gave her strength unlike anything she'd ever felt. She pictured it was _him_ she struck, the bearded man in the Sistine Chapel who reached across the cloud to send a zap of lightening into Adam's finger. Somehow, the mace made contact with the alpha male and shattered its rib cage as though it were made of twigs. With a sickening crack, the creature gave its death yelp and fell to the ground.

"See?" Audrey shrieked. "We aren't your children anymore!"

She heaved the mace up again, lighter this time as her hatred sustained her, and slammed it down into the alpha males skull, smashing it into bloody goo.

The other coyotes growled at her and yipped, uncertain what to do now that their pack leader was dead. Audrey lunged at them with the mace, covered in blood from the alpha mail. The others turned tail and, with growls and yelps, faded back into the night from whence they'd come.

"That's how it's done, you motherfuckers!" Audrey shook her fist at the sky. "This is _our_ planet now. Not yours! And someday, if you come back here, we're going to do the same thing to you. You hear me?"

She heaved up the mace and tried to swing the handle over her shoulder. The mace was heavy, over forty pounds. Without her rage, the momentum pulled her over backwards onto her butt. She landed in the dirt with a thump and shuddered, filled with emotion, not certain whether to laugh or cry.

Leaving the mace upon the ground, she got up, rubbed at the dead coyote's blood, and decided none of it belonged to her. She dragged the dead coyote off of Gabriel's wings and knelt down next to him to make sure the coyote hadn't done serious damage.

"I guess Michael's not going to fly down from heaven to save us, eh, Gabriel?" If she wanted saving, she would just have to do it all herself.

Gabriel murmured, the first sound he had made in days. She'd _seen_ something break in him when he'd realized he was one of _them_ now. Well, tough snickerdoodles! She, Audrey Anderson, had found the Father's scapegoat wandering in the desert. He was _her_ scapegoat now.

The desert wind blew lonely and cold across her skin. Audrey shivered.

"Gabriel?" She touched the hot tissue on his cheek, judging how badly the infection now decimated his body. "We've got to get you warm, okay?" She gripped his hand and bent his enormous fingers around her tiny ones. "You're not alone. I won't let anything bad happen to you until you're well enough to take care of yourself, okay? You have my word."

She dragged the mace to where she could grab it if she needed it, and then lifted up the blood-smeared emergency blanket, encrusted with desert dust, and slid under it, wrapping her body around _his_ to loan him her body heat. Admonitions from the bible, about angels not lying down with mortal women, danced into her brain. _Screw blasphemy._ They were both cold and she wasn't about to let some stupid, meaningless old book to prevent her from being sensible. This was the _last_ night she would sleep alone, buried in the sand, because there was only one blanket and she'd given it to _him_.

"Don't worry," she whispered into his ear. "You're a little too old for me. By like, oh, a few billion years."

 

 


End file.
